Crossing the line
by Torie Rilistkrytcat
Summary: Chris is stressed, and lashes out at the thing nearest to him; his girlfirned. A short, angsty and kind of OOC Chrisney one shot.


**I don't own total drama.**

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They fought constantly. Chris was temperamental, and she knew that. She should have been more sympathetic towards him, but Courtney didn't do sympathetic. She wasn't a sympathetic person, and it didn't help when Chris constantly dismissed her own problems as something insignificant compared to his issues. She knew that he was under a lot of strain due to his job, especially with severe threats of budget cuts, but he could have been a little less rash towards her. It wasn't her fault that he was stressed, after all, and she didn't think it was fair when he took his anger out on her.

The budget cuts were getting worse on the set of total drama. With the seventh series looming ahead, Chris was frantically trying to make plans with the executives. He'd spent so much money on himself for the past few seasons that the studio was low on money, and unless they wanted to go bankrupt it meant drastically slashing Chris's salary. While he was still richer than the average person, it was stressing him out even more, and he would come home only to lose his head at his girlfriend for the most trivial reasons. Courtney hated this behaviour, hated it when he yelled at her. It left a sour taste in her mouth, and ate away at her usual confident demeanour. Courtney tried to keep her strong façade, but she couldn't help being shaken every time he yelled at her. It reminded her far too much of her parents who, while providing her with all the money she needed, took out their resentment on her. Her father, who had a demanding job too, would constantly go ballistic at her and her mother, and sometimes when Chris vented his frustration for his job, she saw her father's face shining out through her boyfriend's eyes. Every time he got angy he would crawl back apologising a few hours later, but no matter what he did to make up for it, it still couldn't shake off the feeling that Chris was getting even worse towards her.

On one particulalry dark day, Chris was in one of his worse moods. Usually, returning to his absurdly large mansion and seeing all the portraits of himself cheered him up slightly, but right now he was furious. The producers of the show had been on his case for so long about the new challenges for the show, but after seven seasons Chris's sadistic creativity was draining. He was sick of having his ideas turned down or deemed too far fetched, and he was fed up with having people breathe down his neck about the new series. Despite himself, Chris was actually growing tired of Total Drama, as with the budget cuts his job had plummeted drastically in quality. He no longer got the satisfaction of finding new ways to torment the teenagers; without the funds for any really interesting challenges, it was growing dull. Right now, he was furious, and every little thing seemed to aggravate him further.

Courtney was sitting in one of the huge lounge rooms in Chris's extravagant mansion that she now lived in, and she sighed when she heard the door slam loudly. This was already a clear indicator that her boyfriend was not happy; when he was in his better moods, he made sure that he shut the door carefully, not wanting to shatter the expensive crystal handles shaped like his head that he'd installed on every door. Not long after, he stomped into the room, looking slightly reminiscent of a child throwing a tantrum. She stood up, intending to greet him, or at least say something; in his worse moods, Chris would accuse her of ignoring him, or not caring about his problems.

"How was your day?" she sighed, and Chris looked up with a scowl.

Right now, with his temper flaring up, he couldn't stand the sight of his girlfriend. Every little thing about her aggravated him right now; her high pitched voice, the way she feigned concern when she probably did not even care. He just wanted to sit down and unwind as best as he could, but she was in his way, and in his irrational state of anger, that rubbed him up the wrong way even more.

"Why do you even care?" he lashed out, eyebrows knotting together angrily. "Can't I just get home without you bothering me sometimes?"

Courtney recoiled slightly, before folding her arms. It wasn't fair that he was angry with her already, especially when she hadn't done anything other than ask how his day was, a gesture she thought that he might have appreciated since he usually loved talking about himself.

"Hey, don't you talk to me like that!" she sniffed indignantly. "I didn't do anything!"

This just seemed to irritate Chris even more, and he gritted his whitened teeth together.

"Just go make me a drink and get out the way!" he ordered, only for Courtney to narrow her eyes.

"Don't you tell me what to do!" she knew that she shouldn't have provoked him, but she refused to be treated like that. She had made it a ground rule in their relationship that he wouldn't treat her like a servant, though Chris frequently did anyway. "I'm not one of your stupid interns! You can make your own damn drink!"

"That's great, isn't it!" Chris huffed, glaring at her. "I've had a bad day, the producers are pissing me off, I've run out of hair gel and now you have to act up too! Can't you just treat me with some sympathy- forget it!"

"Stop acting like an idiot!" Courtney yelled, rolling her eyes.

She didn't realise what happened until a moment later. One second she had been standing firmly, glaring up at her boyfriend, and the next she was crashing into the coffee table, the side of her face stinging. It took her a few moments to realise what had happened, and then a strange mix of fury and shock stabbed through her.

Chris had _hit_ her.

He had never laid hands on her before, and she didn't know how to react. Her boyfriend was pigheaded and selfish, but she had never imagined he would act violently towards her. He had just never seemed to be like that, and suddenly it frightened Courtney. He was just staring down at her, his face hard without its usual arrogant grin, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be away from him. Courtney had made it a rule never to get involved with someone who pushed her around, and though she had dated guys who had hurt her in other ways, no one had actually physically injured her before. She wanted to yell at him, to ask him how he dared do something so disgusting to her, and yet she couldn't speak, couldn't say anything. As Chris slammed down onto the couch, snatching up a bottle of vodka from one of the side tables, Courtney forced herself to get up from her half-sprawled position across the table, wincing as she felt the dull throb that told her she would be developing bruises where the hard wood had collided sharply with her skin. Avoiding Chris's as much as she could, Courtney stumbled gracelessly down the hall until she reached the large bedroom, locking herself in.

She was totally in shock by what had happened. Courtney told herself that she was a strong woman, and that she should go out there and demand Chris apologise to her. She should have left, should have done something to punish him; she couldn't let him get away with this, in case it became a regular occurrence. It was such a trivial thing that he had hit her for, as well; he was in a bad mood, and she was merely getting in his way. She couldn't believe he had hurt her, for such a pathetic reason. However, Courtney couldn't actually drum up the courage to get up and confront Chris now; she was actually trembling slightly, though she refused to admit it. Her face was burning from where his hand had collided with the skin, and bruises were beginning to develop where the force of his hit had knocked her to the table. She didn't know what to think, or do. The portraits of Chfis that hung around the bedroom seemed to taunt her, his still grin making her feel even more tense. The strong part of her was furious, but at the same time the weaker part of her wanted to break down. It was just a sudden act, but it warped her whole perspective of Chris. Now that she knew he had the potential to hurt her, she couldn't help worrying if he would ever do it again.

Courtney waited in the bedroom, unsure of what to do. Every second seemed to take an eternity, but she just didn't know how to go out and face Chris. His foul moods could last for hours, and when he was like this, he was extremely unreasonable.

Chris's buried guilt eventually reared its head a few hours later. He hated the feeling of guilt; he was _the_ Chris MClean, and he usually liked to think of everything he did as faultless. However, he had to admit that he may have overreacted this time; he had actually abused Courtney, something he didn't imagine he would ever do. She had been in the way, and in his fit of anger a simple few words had pushed him over the edge. He was too proud to apologise, though, and he didn't know what he would say to her. So, instead of saying anything, he sat in silence. When Courtney finally slunk out of the bedroom, he just averted his eyes, and the two of them sat awkwardly. He could see her face was swelling, and it killed him- the tiny part of him that felt any emotion other than vanity. There was no apology, or even any contact. Courtney wanted to yell at him and threaten to leave, Chris wanted to tell her he had not actually meant to do anything, but nothing was said or done. Chris's sudden display of violence had broken something between them, and both of them knew that a certain level of trust was gone from the relationship. Even in the days to come, when normality slowly retuned and Chris blurted out an awkward apology, Courtney was more skittish and less comfortable than she had been before; she knew now that Chris had that side to him, and when he inevitably grew stressed again, she was scared that he would cross that line again.

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**Not pleased with the ending, it seems kind of rushed but I wasn't sure how to end this because I didn't want to have a cliché ending where they made up and everything was OK again. This is probably pretty OOC, but... Yeah.**


End file.
